Update Your Living Room Without Wrecking Your Wallet

There will always be moments you look around a room in your house and wish you could do more, but you know you don't have the money to spend on expensive new furniture and you aren't sure where to start.

Make an accent wall with a little bit of wallpaper. Wallpapering the whole room? Yikes. But you can easily make an accent wall by putting a large square of wallpaper on a wall behind a couch, TV, or fireplace and then framing it in simple, thin molding.

Change the fabric, not the furniture. If you're tired of your furniture but there's no money in the budget to pay for it, then consider recovering some of your pieces instead. Check for more affordable fabrics and recover what you can with the fabric of your choice.

Create a photo wall for affordable art. This couldn't be simpler, and thankfully, is extremely inexpensive. Get 4-6 frames that are all the same type with the same matting, then put photos in each frame (you can use your own pictures and get them printed for a few cents at a drug store—go black and white if you can for a more elegant look). Arrange them in a grid on a wall to create a large art feature for just a few dollars.

Paint something small. Painting a whole room can get expensive, especially if you need more than one coat. Skip painting the room and pick smaller items to paint instead. Paint the base of a lamp with shiny spray paint or a wood chair in a new color. Try a small can of a unique color on a mirror or do something different by painting an interior door. It's a great way to inject fresh color without spending a lot of money.